"Yes, quite," she said. "But I'd heard Berne's—what he was saying to you—and the judge's description of what they'd seen; and I thought you would like to know of the footsteps I'd heard—because they were the murderer's; they must have been. I knew it was important, most important."
"You were entirely right," he agreed warmly. "Thank you, very much."
He went the length of the room and halted by one of the bookcases, a weird, lumpy old figure among the shadows in the corner. He was scraping his cheek with his thumb, and looking at the ceiling, over the rims of his spectacles.
Arthur Sloane sighed his impatience.
"Those knees drawn up," Hastings said at last; "I was just thinking. They weren't drawn up when I saw the body. Were they?"
"We'd straightened the limbs," Webster answered. "Thought I'd mentioned that."
"No.—Then, there might have been a struggle? You think the woman had put up a fight—for her life?—and was overpowered?"
"Well," deliberated Webster, "perhaps; even probably."
"Strange," commented the detective, equally deliberate. "I hadn't thought so. I would have said she'd been struck down unawares—without the slightest warning."